System : Based on the PSX based System 573.
I/O Board : Digital I/O board GX894-PWB (B)A
Digital board gets sound in digital format from the CD-Rom through the the IDE lead.
Sound is also routed differently through the PCB compared to Analog board.
Main CPU : R3000A 32 bit RISC processor, Clock - 33.8688MHz, Operating performance - 30 MIPS, Instruction Cache - 4KB
BUS : 132 MB/sec.
OS ROM : 512 Kilobytes
Additional Sound Chips : Playstation SPU, 24 Channels, 44.1KHz sample rate, PCM audio source, Digital effects include: Envelope, Looping, Digital Reverb, Load up to 512K of sampled waveforms, Supports MIDI Instruments.
Main RAM: 2 Megabytes
Video RAM: 2 Megabyte
Sound RAM : 512 Kilobytes
Graphical Processor : 360,000 polygons/sec, Sprite/BG drawing, Adjustable frame buffer, No line restriction, 4,000 8x8 pixel sprites with individual scaling and rotation, Simultaneous backgrounds (Parallax scrolling)
Sprite Effects : Rotation, Scaling up/down, Warping, Transparency, Fading, Priority, Vertical and horizontal line scroll
Resolution : 256x224 - 740x480
Colours : 16.7 million colors, Unlimited CLUTs (Color Look-Up Tables)
Other Features : custom geometry engine, custom polygon engine, MJPEG decoder
Flash Card Notes : All games used a 32meg flash card for the games program, the exception for this is the "Disney's Rave" machine, which for some reason uses a 16meg flash card, so if you want to upgrade you need to get your hands on a 32 meg card.
Notes : Drummania and Guitar Freaks can actually be linked together for "Jam" sessions.
Conversion Notes : The newer versions require some of the roms to be flashed on the mainboard when upgrading the machines. DDR5th Mix was possibly the first to do this. Upgrade kits for 5th Mix come with the System Disc and a security cartridge. To upgrade, Normally, for DDR, the system will boot to the CD, check the security cart, if the cart's empty, it'll overwrite the security cart and prompt a reboot. After the reboot, it'll check the security cart as normal and now as it's been written to will boot up normally.
This was, among other things, to change the game system code so the game would run at 60 fps as opposed to 30 fps.
3rd Mix Notes (thanks to Ross) : How to tell what version of 3rd Mix you have...
If the default song is 'Shock' then you have a 3rd Mix Korea Ver.2. Thist has 16 Korean songs on it, the drawback is that it's missing a few songs from both 3rd and 2nd Mix.
If your default song is Bakkwo then you have a 3rd Korea. If you have ever played on a 3rd Mix Plus, 4th, or 4th Plus you will notice that these are the same seven songs on the other mixes.
Lastly if you default song is Upside Down then it's an asian 3rd Mix. Not only are there songs missing from the real Japanese version but there are 0 Korean songs as well.